


Flashflood

by still_lycoris



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1245403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst investigating a planet to see if Blake has been there, Avon and Vila are caught in a rainstorm ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flashflood

When the rain came, it was sudden, drenching and blinding.

Vila had never seen anything like it before. He practically couldn’t see his own feet. When he looked away from Avon, he almost couldn’t find him again until Avon grabbed his arm and dragged him close.

“We have to climb!” he screamed in Vila’s ear and Vila nodded to show that he understood. When he started to follow Avon, he realised that they were already wading through ankle-deep water. He clung to Avon’s elbow, trying to breathe through his nose and hating that he kept inhaling water. He didn’t want to drown on rain. How could you drown on rain?

The rocks were sodden. He remembered skidding down this slope earlier, feeling the dry specks cling to his trousers. Now it was like mud and he wondered if they were going to start a mudslide, smother themselves in the thick, gloopy mess.

He focused desperately on Avon’s legs, trying not to lose him. If he couldn’t see Avon, if he was left alone in this horrendous flood, he’d drown or freeze or …

He slipped. He clawed for handholds, shrieking wordlessly. For a horrible, horrible moment, there was nothing under his hands and he was feeling himself going backwards and he was going to fall and he was going to die – 

Avon grabbed him by the arm, nails digging through Vila’s shirt. He dragged Vila upwards towards him and Vila came, still clawing, clutching Avon’s reassuringly solid arm.

“In here!” Avon bellowed and shoved him forward. Vila found himself scrabbling forward and tumbling into a dark, dank sort of space. He twisted around, trying to get his bearings and then Avon was cramming in beside him, pushing him back against the damp, rocky wall.

“We’ll shelter in here,” he said, no longer screaming down Vila’s ear but still speaking loudly to be heard over the crashing rain.

“What if there’s a mudslide?” Vila asked, trying not to sound shrill. “What if we get smothered? I don’t want to get smothered!”

“We’re high up enough to avoid that,” Avon said. “I’d worry about the rising water level if I were you.”

He gave Vila one of his rather nasty half-smiles and then turned away, staring at the sheet of water that covered their cave mouth. Vila hugged his knees, trying to calm himself down, wondering if the shivering was from fear or the cold that was beginning to crush him now he’d been soaked with water.

“Is … is the water level likely to … to come up this far?”

“Well now, I’ve no idea,” Avon said silkily. “I expect we’ll find out.”

Vila whimpered and put his teleport bracelet to his lips again.

“Tarrant! Cally! Come in, would you?”

“They are not going to come,” Avon said coldly. “This rainstorm is disrupting everything. Even if they can hear us, they can’t teleport us out of here until the rainstorm is over. Now be quiet. Your voice is annoying me.”

Vila made a hurt noise but stopped shouting into his bracelet. He knew Avon was right, that they were trapped but he didn’t want to be. He hated being trapped. He hated small dark places like this. He hated thinking of that water creeping up further and further …

“Stop making that noise, Vila!”

“I’m not,” he defended himself automatically. “It’s the rain! Or some big, horrible thing out there. There’s probably animals that just hunt in this, you know. That come round and sneak into caves, finding poor, defenceless creatures that have taken refuge and then they bite their heads off with their massive, massive teeth … ”

“Good thing we’re both armed then.”

Avon sounded vaguely amused and Vila relaxed a little. At least Avon was amused. If Avon could be amused, things couldn’t be too bad, not really. He shuffled a tiny bit closer, deciding that if Avon wasn’t in a furious mood, he’d be better off getting some of Avon’s body heat. Avon didn’t try to move away. He continued to stare at the curtain of rain, waiting for it to stop.

“This was so stupid,” Vila said mournfully. “We should never have come here, Avon. Why did we come here? Orac said it was prone to atmosphere disrupting rainstorms and electrical storms and all sorts of horrible things. I tell you, we made a horrible, horrible mistake here. Again.”

“We came here to find Blake,” Avon said quietly. “As you well know. So shut up.”

He said it all very quietly but there was a coldness in the words that silenced Vila immediately. He knew better than to continue when Avon spoke like that. He hugged his knees tighter, stared at his feet and wished they were back on the _Liberator_ , all snug and warm and dry and maybe playing Galactic Monopoly or chess or that stupid cone game that Avon seemed to like. Vila was sure he was always changing the rules so that he always won it.

A blinding flash and then boom of thunder rang out, so loud that Vila half-thought it was an explosion. Avon seemed to think the same, he jerked back so fast that he nearly knocked Vila over.

“Oh goody,” Vila said. “Thunder. Just what we needed to make this little trip perfect.”

“Shut _up_ , Vila.”

This time, Avon sounded strange and Vila fell quiet, not because he was afraid but because he wanted to work out what that tone meant. There was another flash of lightning, another jarring crash of thunder and Avon twitched again, not quite so much but a noticeable twitch all the same.

When he did it again after the third crash of thunder, Vila worked out the problem.

Avon was _afraid_.

He supposed it made sense. Avon had probably never been out of the domes when he’d been on Earth. He’d probably never seen a thunderstorm before, much less been caught in one. Vila hadn’t seen that many himself but he had caught the odd one or two, even rather enjoyed watching them. This one was a little strong for his tastes and he would certainly rather not be caught out in it but he wasn’t afraid of the storm so much as the rain and the mud and the possibility of drowning.

Another flinch and Vila edged closer and put his hand on Avon’s arm.

“Avon, I don’t like the thunder.”

“Don’t you?” Avon was trying to sound disdainful but his other hand came up to cover Vila’s fingers and gripped them convulsively the next time the thunder rang out.

“No,” Vila said, wriggling closer so they were pressed together and letting Avon grip his fingers again. “Never liked hearing them, even in the Delta domes. Bet we were less sound-proof than you lot.”

“Probably,” Avon agreed distractedly, fingers digging in. “Don’t be afraid, Vila.”

“I’ll try,” Vila said, putting his hand on top of Avon’s and rubbing it gently. “Difficult for me. You know what I’m like, scared of my own shadow.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a while, huddled together. Vila felt cold and clammy and miserable. He pictured all the warm places that he’d ever been in and hoped that imagining them would warm him up. It didn’t work.

“My Mum said that there’s always sunshine after rain,” he said, trying to cheer himself up with words instead. “She always said it, all the time. Bout other things too, when things seemed sad. And to be fair, she was quite often right. Course, she hasn’t ever seen rain like this so she could be wrong … ”

“Blake was never here, was he?”

Avon clearly hadn’t been listening. He sounded … lost. Vila looked at him just as lightning flashed again and he saw Avon’s pale profile and for that half-second, Vila thought that Avon’s lower lip was quivering.

“He was never here,” he said again. “He was … we followed another wild lead and it came to nothing, like all the other leads we’ve followed.”

Oh God. Oh God, Avon sounded like he was going to _cry_. He wouldn’t cry, would he? That couldn’t possibly happen, could it? Avon didn’t cry, Avon didn’t even have human emotions most of the time, he couldn’t possibly cry …

Only Avon had been tired lately. And they’d been looking for Blake for what felt like forever and they hadn’t been able to find Jenna either and that could get to a person, couldn’t it and Avon and Blake, things had always been weird between them, impossible to understand and things were complicated ...

“I … ” he said pathetically. “I … well, he doesn’t seem to be here now, but he might have been here, maybe we just missed him, we shouldn’t worry about it. We’ll find him eventually, you know we will, he’s probably just off being super heroic and amazing and … and stuff like that.”

He tried to think of more inane things to mutter but they seemed to be drying up in his throat. Avon’s fingers were flexing on his, twitching and trembling, even though there was less thunder now.

“We won’t find him,” he said softly. “Not unless he wants to be found. And he doesn’t, does he? He doesn’t want us. For some reason, he doesn’t want us any more.”

“It’s not like that,” Vila said. “I’m _sure_ it’s not, Avon. He’s just … doing something heroic. He doesn’t need us right now, that’s all. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. You’ll see, Avon. You’ll see.”

He expected Avon to tell him he was an idiot or a sentimental fool but Avon didn’t do either of those things. He went quiet again, staring out. It was dark outside now and they could barely see the rain, although they could still hearing it, water rushing everywhere, filling the cracks of the world.

“Vila … Vila, I … ”

And Vila knew that Avon, cold and tired and afraid in a way that Vila had never seen him, he was going to try and express emotions that he never normally expressed and tomorrow, when they were safe on the _Liberator_ , he would think about what he’d said and he would be horrified and he’d probably never speak to Vila again and Vila couldn’t handle that, he needed Avon to be strong and tough and not to hate him, he needed …

“Avon, what’s that, look, down there!”

He pointed and Avon snatched his gun, pointing it at the cave entrance and peering through the rain for non-existent monsters.

“There’s nothing there, Vila!”

“There was, I’m telling you, down there!”

“Vila, you’re an idiot. An over excitable, complete idiot who imagines things in shadows. Sometimes I wonder why we keep you on the _Liberator_ at all … ”

He continued his rant, detailing everything he could possibly think of that was wrong with Vila. Vila listened quietly, made a few agreeable noises and eventually leaned his head against Avon’s shoulder, closing his eyes. After a while, Avon went quiet. The thunder had stopped too and the rain sounded quieter, more peaceful.

“Are you asleep, Vila?”

He made a little humming noise, not wanting to be disturbed. He heard Avon give a little sigh and then Avon leaned against him, his cheek against Vila’s hair. Vila didn’t react. It was quite nice really. He didn’t get touched very often. Even if it was Avon touching, it was nice. Warm. And he was quite sleepy now and almost comfortable, almost …

He didn’t know how long he slept. Suddenly his bracelet was chiming and Avon was moving away from him, looking almost confused. Sunshine was glowing through their cave mouth, sparkling on thousands of scattered raindrops.

“Avon? Vila? Are you there?”

“We’re here,” Avon said quietly. “Bring us up.”

Vila sighed with relief as the diamond drops vanished, replaced by the teleport bay and Cally’s anxious face. Avon stood up at once, stretching with his hands on his back. Vila scrambled up too, yelping as pins and needles shot through.

“Ooooh, Cally, it was _horrible_ down there, you’ve never seen rain like it and we had to hide in this cave and we thought the water might come up and drown us, it was horrible and I _definitely_ saw some sort of wet prowling beast … ”

Cally smiled at him patiently, letting him babble on. He saw her look at Avon, raise her eyebrow slightly and he knew she was saying something telepathically to him. Avon’s lip quirked a little bit and he looked at Vila.

“Vila. Shut up.”

“Fine,” Vila said huffily. “I’ll go and take a warm bath and then I’m having a proper nap, hardly slept a _wink_ down there … ”

He glanced at Avon to see if Avon was going to react to that. Avon was still smiling that little lip-quirked smile. As Vila walked past, he felt the briefest touch on his arm. 

A touch of thanks, maybe?

Vila grinned happily to himself.

There was always sunshine after rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the b7friday challenge "It never rains but it pours" challenge.


End file.
